Swash is the world’s first Data Union – TX Podcast

Swash is the world’s first Data Union – TX Podcast

2020-10-12

Swash App logo

Both Swash and Streamr are companies on a mission to create a better, more dignified internet where people are in control of their data and rewarded for their contributions as data providers. On this episode, we have Reza Naeeni, Co-Founder and CEO of Swash and Shiv Malik, Head of Growth at the Streamr project.

Streamr recently launched its Data Union framework, and Swash is the first real-world example of a Data Union built on the Streamr technology stack. Swash browser plugin allows users to monetize their browsing data, giving users the tools to capture their data, choose what they want to share and what to hide, and then send it in real-time to Streamr’s data Marketplace where buyers can purchase the data.

The open-source Data Union framework makes this kind of proposition viable by bringing together the data from a large number of data providers and making it available to buyers, and then enabling data providers to withdraw payments for their data from the single Ethereum smart contract. Swash is already used by thousands of users around the world.

With Reza and Shiv, we talk about the issues around data selling today and how Data Unions can alleviate these problems, open up new ethical business opportunities and fairer value chains around data. In this new world, all partners benefit from data exchange.

Watch the video podcast on Youtube or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Key learnings with Swash

1. The Rise of Data Unions: Data unions are not just a buzzword; they represent a paradigm shift in how we perceive and handle data. Shiv Malik’s comparison of data unions to labor unions underscores the collective power that individuals can harness when they come together. He mentions, “Data unions are like labor unions. It’s about pooling together to get a better deal.” By pooling data, its intrinsic value increases, and the benefits are not just reaped by big corporations but are shared among the contributors. This democratization of data is a step towards leveling the playing field in an era where data is a prized asset.

2. A Shifting Regulatory Landscape: The public’s growing awareness of data misuse, fueled by documentaries and media coverage, is ushering in a new era of data regulation. Ben Sheppard’s mention of Netflix documentaries is a testament to the mainstream attention this issue is receiving. As Shiv Malik points out, “The realization that companies might know more about individuals than they know about themselves is unsettling.” This sentiment is driving the push for more stringent regulations, ensuring that data usage is transparent and ethical.

3. Swash: A Beacon of Empowerment: Swash stands out as a beacon in the data landscape, offering users a tangible way to monetize their browsing data. Reza Naeeni’s description of Swash as a browser plugin underscores its user-friendly approach. He states, “Swash is a browser plugin that collects and sells your browsing data, but in a way that ensures the data is non-sensitive.” This commitment to user privacy and empowerment sets Swash apart in a market where data collection often happens behind closed doors.

4. Streamr’s Pivotal Role: Streamr’s role in the data ecosystem is pivotal. As Reza Naeeni highlights, “Streamr’s stack facilitates the data union model, making it a preferred choice for initiatives like Swash.” Beyond the technical prowess, Streamr’s culture of collaboration and support has been a cornerstone for startups navigating the complex world of blockchain and data monetization. Their approach is a testament to the power of community and collaboration in driving innovation.

5. A Glimpse into the Future: The podcast paints a vivid picture of the future possibilities in the data realm. Shiv Malik’s questions about data ownership, from washing machines to cars, highlight the broader implications of the data debate. He asserts, “Who owns the data from your washing machine, from your car? Consumers should own this, not the manufacturers.” As devices become smarter and more interconnected, the data they generate will become increasingly valuable. Malik’s assertion about the imminent arrival of clickable, portable data rights suggests a future where individuals have unprecedented control over their data.

6. A Call for Transparency and Empowerment: The podcast’s overarching theme is a clarion call for transparency and empowerment in the data economy. Shiv Malik’s emphasis on not hiding data practices from consumers is a refreshing perspective in an industry often shrouded in secrecy. He states, “You’re not trying to hide that from the consumer for once, right? You can actually just say, this is a thing that makes a data product.” By making data products explicit and transparent, platforms like Swash and Streamr are championing a new era where consumers are not just passive data generators but active participants in the data economy.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, the conversations around data ownership, monetization, and ethical use will only intensify. Platforms like Swash and Streamr are at the forefront of this revolution, championing a more equitable and transparent approach. Their efforts, combined with a shifting regulatory landscape and growing public awareness, promise a future where data is not just a tool for profit but a means of empowerment.

Transcript

Guests

Ben Sheppard – Host

Reza Naeeni – CEO at Swash

Shiv Malik – Head of growth at Streamr

Ben Sheppard  00:15

Hi, welcome to the TX tomorrow explorer podcast show. I’m Ben Sheppard, Managing Director of TX. In this podcast series we dive into Web 3 technologies their role in the emergence of data economies, with guests from some of the most forward-thinking companies from around the world. We talk about innovative ways of engineering data to create value, and the next generation of Internet technology, including blockchain, decentralization, AI and machine learning. So, last week, our friends at the stream of project announced the full launch day two union framework that helps developer teams and enterprises monetize data hand in hand with their customers. There’s a lot of opportunities out there when it comes to data. But it’s usually a regulatory and ethical minefield, let alone a technical challenge to actually realize those opportunities. By utilizing Streamr data union framework, your organization can unlock a brand new, customer centric, data driven business model, your customers are the ones driving the sales by giving their consent for data to be sold and here’s the kicker, the income generated is automatically shared between your organization and your customers. So, this is a win-win situation. customers get financially rewarded for your organization improves its bottom line. The framework has been in public beta since June, and projects have been testing out the functionality with great success. If you want to know more about the data union framework visit streamr.network, where you can reach out to their growth team for a chat and to learn more about data union frameworks. Today we’ll be hearing from the world’s first data unit Swash. Swash is a browser app that helps people monetize their internet browsing data. listen in on this pod, learn all about data union frameworks and how data union frameworks can help you and your customers unlock brand new business models. Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The TX tomorrow explored podcast show. I’m Ben Sheppard, Managing Director at TX and we have two superb guests on the show this week. So, we’ve got Reza Naeeni, who’s the CEO at Swash and we’ve got Shiv Malik, the Head of growth at Streamr. Let’s start with you, Reza. How’s life? How’s things are at Swash?

Reza Naeeni  02:51

Hey, Ben, thanks for having me. Great to be here. I’m doing great. Things at Swash are going well. We had a productive summer after we start working with our live ventures. A lot of good news, a lot of good updates and there is a there is a lot more to come.

Ben Sheppard  03:11

Cool and Shiv congratulations. I saw last night that you’re on a pod that’s come out on the BBC. Not sure exactly when our pods going out. But I’m sure that will add a link to that in the comment section when we actually send this one out. So, yeah, congrats on that really, really cool stuff and how’s life with you?

Shiv Malik  03:31

I mean, I know you guys are winning on the numbers, obviously, you have much larger numbers. So, good to be here. But I love how you like we’ve been working together for two and a half years. You still messed up my name.

Ben Sheppard  03:46

And there’s a story behind that as well, which is funny.

Shiv Malik  03:51

What was the question you’re gonna ask? What the actual question I forgotten.

Ben Sheppard  03:56

How are things?

Shiv Malik  04:00

It’s been really hectic. I go back to my first trip, which was great, like out of the country. I mean, out of the house is already exciting enough at this point. But I went to Berlin to a data conference, which is, you know, sounds like a snooze fest, but actually was really exciting, because it had a load of people from the European Commission, that basically remaking data loss so I got to meet all of those people and then went to Teagle airport you fly in and if you’ve ever been to Berlin, is this weird, like octagonal Airport, where you walk in and you’re basically by the gate already, but you can see it there like it’s so weird and I just found out the tearing it down, that was it. They had the last flight on Tuesday.

Ben Sheppard  04:46

Now you’re back in the UK do you have to have one of those dreaded tests where they tickle your brain with a long cotton but on the end.

Shiv Malik  04:54

I had one of those in Berlin because he they’re Germans they like sorted the shit out like ages ago. They have testing at airports who knew you could do that, right? So, he just walked in no queues, no, whatever and oh my god, that doctor like just went for it and tickled is definitely not the right word. I was like, this is into my left lobe, like in my brain and my like, eyes was streaming, they say like that, you know, if your eyes don’t tear up, they’re not doing it properly. So, that guy definitely got his fun. Got his medically trained. Otherwise, I would have hit him because it hurt. Yeah, he had a white coat. I mean, what more do you need then?

Ben Sheppard  05:39

I actually had one done recently in a car park outside where the doctor’s surgery was and everyone had to like drive up in their cars stay in the cars and then someone would walk over to the window, you undo the window, and like there’s this long stick and someone’s… you were there to see if you’ve got

Shiv Malik  06:02

Yeah, no, I had one of those in Ipswich and it was markedly efficient when it works. The problem is, at least in the UK doesn’t work. Like, yeah, they might do your test. But you might not get it back in time before it goes like stale, right? Oh, they just lose it entirely. Because the spreadsheets that they’re using are Microsoft from 2003, right? Yeah, we only do 60,000 rows. Yeah, there we go.

Ben Sheppard  06:32

So the pod today is not about COVID. Our listeners, it’s actually about data monetization and really, some of the challenges around monetizing personal data and the importance of being of giving explicit consent on that and then being able to reward people for actually, you know, giving voluntary sort of sale of their data into different industries and different applications and business models. So, what I wanted to do in this pod was, was really start with working through why is this important? So why is it important that individuals are able to give explicit consent to their data being sold? Why is it important that they can potentially receive some rewards for that, and what sort of triggered all of this and some of our listeners will be aware of, you know, social media platforms out there, like Facebook that might have been selling some of our data without telling us and yes, they might say that we’d agreed to the terms, but it wasn’t very obvious, was it. So, Shiv, you’ve obviously just done your trip to Berlin, can you start by telling us what’s currently going on in the regulatory environment around this subject and how are things changing as a result of what some of these, you know, major enterprises have been doing over the last couple of years with our data?

Shiv Malik  08:06

Yeah. So, let me take a second. But first, if you want, you know, the data broking industry, if you want to call it that. It has been mushrooming over the last sort of decade if you want. And, you know, actually people slam Facebook and Google for selling our data. That’s actually technically not true. They don’t actually sell our data. Now, if they were, you know, split into companies separate companies, then yes, absolutely. They’d be selling certainly insights and then sometimes the raw data to different parts of themselves but essentially, what they deal in is an ad tech and they’re selling access to their platform. But they need that data, obviously, to create a monopoly around that platform. But lots of people are also selling our data. There’s literally like raw data and insights that come with that and they’ve mushroom. The problem is that lots of things are changing. So, people’s obviously, ordinary people, regulators have like wised up to what’s been going on and the first assault on all of this, if you want was GDPR, like privacy, they’re like, hang on, we deserve, ordinary people deserve privacy. You can’t just scrape all our data for us and then predict our behaviors and sell its advertising and like this is very intrusive, right? You it turns out, you’ll know when you know, my partner is pregnant, or that I’ve got cancer way before I do, right. This is strange. It’s creepy. It’s weird at best. So, that was the first assault and so obviously, in a sense, what what’s happened is these brokers about to go underground, we’re gonna have to still collect this data because we need a viable business here. So, it’s become even more kind of dark or the kind of the techniques they’ve used to do that. So, you know, buried on their consent form on page 70. Like it’ll be buried there. Like, yes, we can basically harvest all of your information about you or they’ll do it in even more surreptitious ways. Like, it turns out the antivirus software you’re using is spying on you, right? So, it’s not actually providing you with antivirus software. It’s just a gateway drug, if you want to knowing everything you do. So, they can make a fortune out of it at the back end, right? So, regulators now have gone well, this didn’t work, right and they also want a few more things out of this. So, when I went to Berlin, and actually if you watch the American scene as well, people, regulators on both sides, right or left, if you want to use those traditional party divides, they’re really, really angry, right? They’re gearing up for a fight, because they’re like, from the European side that like, we’ve lost this game, or we’re losing it very drastically, like the data just isn’t in Europe, right? We know that if you want to data economy could have data, right? You could have control of that you got to like, have innovation, you could have competition, none of these things are happening. They sort of thought that privacy would do that and then they realized, oh, right, privacy just gives people privacy, it doesn’t get people to compete with each other, right? So, they like, oh, we need a new Digital Services Act, which is what’s coming down the road and a couple of months, six months, certainly to a year, but you’ll see it in about six months that the kind of draft that will come.

Ben Sheppard  11:19

This is a new EU law.

Shiv Malik  11:21

Yes.

Ben Sheppard  11:22

Wow.

Shiv Malik  11:23

Yeah. So, we’re starting to see the details of that. I mean, so if you read the European Commission’s communique on February 19, you will start to see what that looks like and it’s gonna be fascinating. There’s some really interesting things, especially for data unions and in fact, it looks like some kind of self-regulatory environment will be set up by the EU, which will include funding for what they’re calling data intermediaries, but they also interchange and we got, you know, data unions was used as a term data cooperatives. So, that’s great. on the American side, same thing, people still really angry, they don’t like monopolies. I mean, you can read the US press coming out even I think even this week. They I think even yesterday, in fact, the Democrats sort of something leaked from the Democrats saying that they want to break up these data monopolies. So, it’s all happening right now and if Biden wins, Yang probably will end up being in the cabinet and he’s a big proponent of the data dividend. He knows what we’re doing his team, we talk with them all the time. So, I guess it’s all to play for on the regulatory front, from a data humans perspective.

Ben Sheppard  12:31

Okay, so just for our listeners, data unions is something that we had shipped come on the pod back on the sixth of April and talk around. So, if you haven’t listened to that pod, you can find it in our list of episodes. But could you just give us your sort of two-minute explanation of what the data union is shift so that people that haven’t listened to that pod can understand it as well?

Shiv Malik  12:55

Yeah and basically, we’re trying to solve this problem of how to individuals control and monetize that data, right? We all know that, like, there are a couple of solutions out there. But one of them we think that didn’t wouldn’t work was just like a bunch of individuals just like having a data wallet, and then by a somehow coming to them, and asking, can we have your data set, because they have to do that, like 1000, 15,000 times over to get anything valuable? Not great idea. So, we thought, clearly, you need to kind of unionize this data, aggregate it bundle it right now, hence the union idea and that also makes for a better kind of collective negotiation, right? It’s easier for the buyers, they don’t have to talk to one representative, they get more data all in one go. But it’s also better for the individuals, right? Because actually, they don’t have to individually worry about any of this, they have a rap and they know that the data once aggregated like that in a pool is worth more, right. So, it’s a lot like in a sense labor union from that perspective. So, we created the back-end tech to create generic solutions for that, and then also distribute the payments out because that’s not easy either. Like how the how does one person pay a million people like half a cent each, it’s not possible with the so you have to devise ways to create these micro payment services as well. So, that’s what we did at Streamr was to create these kind of a generic technological solution for all those problems. So, you know, people like Reza could come along and go, okay, like, what do we want to actually focus on, right? And who are the people we want to reach?

Ben Sheppard  14:31

Okay, so we’ve sort of covered off very briefly how the regulatory environment is changing. A lot of people are watching Netflix at the moment, because they’re in lockdown. There’s actually a few different documentaries on Netflix at the moment that touch on this subject as well. There was one about Cambridge Analytica a few months back, and there’s another one that’s just come out called social dilemma, which is very interesting as well, is the how our data is being used to and maybe directs the way that elections might have gone in recent times, and, and that sort of thing. So, perhaps you could elaborate on some of the ways that data has been missed used Shiv and how, how that needs to be overcome and perhaps, if the individual is given explicit consent on how data is used, it would perhaps curb some of those problems, but not all of those problems.

Shiv Malik  15:28

Yeah, so I was a journalist at the guardian for a long while, and investigative journalist and actually played a very, very small part in breaking the original Cambridge analytical story, which actually was broken in late 2015. So, it’s actually Ted Cruz. Most people I know, this was a young journalist, who I was kind of working with at the time and called Harry Davis, who discovered this. He’s like, oh, look, Ted Cruz’s campaign is working with this weird company called Cambridge Analytica, and they’re being really invasive. And, and no one in the Guardian desk was all that interested and I was like, okay, well, look, I’ll try and help you and we’ll get some great quotes from Americans, you’re gonna be really upset about this and that’ll, like sell it to the desk, and then we’ll get it published. And, you know, I went to David Frum, who is was George W. Bush’s speech writer, and he kind of knew of some other stuff and he said, you know, this is interesting, like Americans who don’t care about their privacy, right? The story got out, and then it was made much, much bigger, kind of a year or two later by by Carol. Cadwallader, who’s a freelancer with The Guardian, who found some extra information and kind of made it into a much bigger thing. What was wrong with that, right? What was at the heart of it? Well, first of all, actually, it was the same story, people’s attitudes to privacy have actually changed. People have realized that they don’t want to be targeted. They don’t want these companies to know more about their lives, and they do. So, that’s actually the first thing. So, their practices really hadn’t changed. It’s just our attitudes to them had changed. The second thing is consent, right? Which is woven in that first point, people realized, like, what am I when I say yes to all these things? What am I actually clicking on? And that’s been that’s, that’s now growing into a really big problem where people are like, I’m being forced into these kinds of contracts of adhesion, if you want to use that kind of legal term. Like, I don’t have any say, I don’t have a lawyer who can fight my head, oh, no. Can you amend, you know, subsection C on page 30? That doesn’t work for me. Like, it’s not a good dude, who’s ever done that? Actually, I do know, a guy who does read all of the contracts, he signs, but he spent hours doing this in his life, like, who wants to do that? So that doesn’t work either, right? So that’s also changed and GDPR has actually made it worse, right? Because you just like, sign these other things, which you have no, like power, right? So they realize that like regulators, and they’re like, oh, yeah, we made that worse, didn’t we? That’s literally what they would say in this conference and I think the third thing is, is the equity issue. You’re like, oh, wait, hang on. So, you’re a trillionaire. I mean, literally, like your company’s worth a trillion dollars. But I haven’t got any better. Like, I haven’t got better off of I probably got worse off. Right. So, that’s the other the finals. Like, I think the straw that’s breaking the camel’s back at this point is, is that, and maybe there’s a fourth point, which is not usually related to ordinary people, but affects everyone, which is innovation, right? And we’ve seen that too, like, oh, look, you’re a small company on Amazon, you start to sell a really good product. Amazon has a God’s eye view on everything on their platform. So, they see what you’re doing and they go, oh, look, these guys are really doing really well. We’ll just copy them, right and will subsidize our product, which looks just like theirs until it drives the other person out of business because we want their business and you’re like, well, that’s not fair. You’re like, wow, it’s just business. It’s capitalism, isn’t it? Like, if you have an unfair advantage, you know, everything and we know nothing, right? And that happens with Facebook, right? That’s why they keep buying up companies, right? So, with Google, like, how many map apps do you use? It turns out, you might use Google Maps, or Waze and that like services, like 4 billion people in the world, something like that. Waze is owned by Google. So, actually, it’s just one. It’s crazy. You know, we have 7 billion people on this planet, and there are just a lack of complete dearth of innovation, if you really think about it from that perspective.

Ben Sheppard  19:28

Just on the GDPR, I remember when that legislation came out, that was rather large penalty that was associated with not being GDPR compliant, was it 30 million euros, you could get fined if you’d been caught somehow breaking some of the provisions under the GDPR law. Do you know of any company yet that’s been hit with that fine as it got to that stage?

Shiv Malik  19:53

Yeah, there are I don’t pay too much attention to the kind of finding thing because they don’t really have much track with government and regulators in that sense solving this, because the people who really matter like they make billions. So, unless you’re going to find them billions and billions, and there are some new finding regimes now, which are all blank percentages of your company’s profit. But you know, again, they ended up, you’re not getting it the problem here, right? Yes, they might like, actually, what’s happened is, is that people like Apple, Facebook and Google have said, look, we were big companies, we can handle privacy and they can, right, actually, what it means is that they get to suck up even more data and put even higher walls around their information. They siloed it further, because they’re like we are trusted, right? And we can’t now give it to anyone else. Definitely, right? Because that’s a privacy issue, right? Serious privacy issue, we get fined. So, it’s just made, it’s aggravated the problem and again, people have realized it’s like, not just people like me and you but like regulators are literally talking about like, we’ve made this worse, haven’t we?

Ben Sheppard  21:03

Okay, so let’s move on to some of the amazing technologies that are coming out that help to overcome parts of parts of this problem, because it’s very big Jigsaw that we’re that we’re trying to solve here. So, Reza Swash app is an app that enables users to monetize their web browser data, sounds absolutely fantastic. Can you can you tell us a bit more about Swash what why is it needed and who’s using this app? I mean, how many users have you got, please?

Reza Naeeni  21:36

Sure. Well, basically Swash is a is the first real life use case of this idea of data union that Shiv just described and it’s basically a simple one, it’s a browser plugin that allows users to monetize their surfing data. So, we’ve tried to make this really simple, users can just grab slash browsers normal and earn the value of their data and their data gets aggregated and added to a marketplace where data buyers can come and subscribe to and the payments from data buyers gets distributed over a smart contract to users. So, in that way, we’ve enabled this individual data monetization and also we’ve solved the problem of you know, people being able to pull their data together to increase its value and put it out for sales. So, this is what Swash does, and it’s growing, why it’s needed, I think it’s pretty obvious because it’s becoming more clear, every day that users need to have more agency over their data and not only their data, the value that that data creates, because it is starts when people have choice and control and as they practice their data rights, they become more empowered and they can decide how and where they want to spend the value of their data and that that can totally create like new streams of value for everyone and like, like Shiv mentioned, it’s not all about the everyday people. It’s also can you imagine the number of businesses that can be improved or can be created, where that high quality data is now crowd sourced from all users? So yeah, regarding question of how many users we have, we have now over 3300 users and that’s growing and that’s a good number, especially when you look at it with the you know, at the early stage that we are in with the little marketing budget we’ve had, because this is basically very community driven, because people will understand that the more people join this data union, the stronger it becomes and the more reward everyone is going to get. So, there is that social aspect to it, which is going to hopefully make it viral. So, yeah, this is growing and we’re very happy to see that people are starting to become more aware of their data rights, because what policymakers and regulators are doing is always going to be like a few steps behind if you know what these data firms or this innovative minds are doing. So, you can’t it’s and it’s not realistic to expect these monopolized centralized players to correct themselves to fix themselves. So, at some point, you have to get people behind this and to get people behind it. You need to realign the economic incentive that’s driving this whole, that this whole economy. So, that’s what we’re trying to do, to redistribute those data profits and to, you know, make the make the playing field more equal.

Ben Sheppard  25:16

One of the things we touched on earlier in the in the pod was around data privacy and the fact that people might have been given consent for their data to be used by some of these other social or by some social media platforms, whether it be direct or indirect monetization. But it wasn’t perhaps explicit. It wasn’t obvious that people had signed up to it, because it’s tucked away deep into these terms and conditions that no one reads. So, how is Swash dealing with that explicit consent in its application, do you have a very easy way for people to sort of sign up and give that consent as part of the process of onboarding to Swash?

Reza Naeeni  26:01

Well, this is something that that’s the whole proposition that we’re saying you’re giving this data away for free, and you don’t know, most of the time it’s being collected from you, without your knowledge without your consent. But we want to collect your data, non-sensitive data. So, this is actually what we’re you know, you’re being frank and direct about it, saying that we want to collect your data, we actually want to enable you to kind of crowdsource your own data to pull your data together and when we do that, you are in control of your own data. So, we start with that, we want to reward you for your data and this is our business model and at any point, you can opt out, so you don’t have to use Swash, first of all, but you know, and when you start using Swash, if you’d like to get rewarded for the value of your data, you know, at any point, you can turn Swash off, it’s very easy and the data we collect is not sensitive personal data, like your email or your telephone number and it gets anonymized and aggregated, at end to end encrypted. Sorry, for the lack of more user-friendly words. But yeah, these are some of the things that we are working in Swash to kind of protect users and to kind of be very transparent about what you’re doing.

Ben Sheppard  27:36

Yeah, that’s great. I mean, just the way you’ve articulated there, it’s, you know, there’s no hidden agenda, it’s a very transparent value proposition, we’ll help you sell your data, and you receive rewards for it, you know, it’s no, there’s no hiding anything in any of that value proposition whatsoever. So, I’m curious, why did you decide to use the Streamr technology stack to build sort of Swash on top of that, and launch it, what was your reasons for that?

Reza Naeeni  28:11

Well, the biggest reason, it’s that the Streamr stack was the only one that allows for this data union model which is…

Ben Sheppard  28:21

That’s a good start.

Reza Naeeni  28:27

Yeah, but this ability to crowdsource data at scale, real time data and putting it somewhere Well, first of all, you know, collecting that data, then transporting it over a peer-to-peer network. So, to avoid all the centralized data management solutions problems, and then placing it somewhere to be sold, which is in our case, again, Streamr’s marketplace. So, and Streamr is one of the technically solid decentralized data platforms out there and it’s very easy to develop on top of Streamr a stack because you have the tooling, you have the documentation, which is very helpful when you’re, you know, developing when you’re building out something on a cutting edge technology, like blockchain and of course, we use the Streamr’s funding and support, which really helped us kind of accelerate those early stage problems that any startup has and what’s been really equally important to all of the things I just mentioned is the Streamr culture and the team that we found really collaborative, very supportive and they want you to succeed as much as you know, as much as you do yourself. So, they’ve always been there for us and we’re very I’m thankful in that sense for having worked with Streamr.

Shiv Malik  30:05

It’s really heartening to hear. So, thanks. Getting something right maybe.

Ben Sheppard  30:12

Philosophies are aligned as well, because you know, Streamr and launching the data union framework is very much about putting the individual in control of their data and so the philosophy of Swash and Streamr sounds like a match made in heaven. You know, really? What else can we expect on the Swash roadmap, Reza, I know, you’re doing a lot of work with outlier ventures at the moment and I’m looking forward to hearing a pod by Jeremy Burke on the founders of Web 3 coming out of Swash it at some point. But yeah, can you tell us what’s coming up on the roadmap?

Reza Naeeni  30:47

So, we are in the process of raising our seed funding at this point. Once that’s done, we are over the next 12 months we are, of course, we are working on increasing the number of our users. We are planning to integrate with other marketplaces, we are trying to make our data more usable, and diversify our data product sets. Because that’s going to help us sell this data better. We’re also going to partner up with social goods organizations to be able to, you know, allow our users to donate the value of their data if they wish. So, we are also planning this is something that we are, we really want, we want to make it happen because it’s important to enter the mobile data market, because that’s perhaps like 50% of all the data being generated today in the world is is coming from mobile devices and that’s very strategic for us to be able to kind of tap into that market as well.

Ben Sheppard  32:05

Cool, cool. Sounds like there’s some pretty interesting stuff on the horizon. So, I mean, Swash and Streamr sounds like a match made in heaven, similar philosophies around empowering individuals to be in control of their data and monetize data. In previous pods, we’ve talked about the Tracy project, which also helps artisanal fisherfolk that are currently unbanked to monetize their catch and trade data, and be able to then access microfinance from institutions. So, again, similar philosophies about putting the individual in control of their data, making that individual be able to profit from sharing data, whether it be you know, direct financial rewards or profit by getting access to other services. Shiv, I’m curious, what other applications are out there like Swash, what are you seeing come up more and more as we get deeper into this sort of data union, sort of view of how data should be sort of managed and disseminated and utilized?

Shiv Malik  33:21

Okay, so I’d say, let’s take this, let’s figure out what the buyers want, right? Because actually, in a sense, they’re the ones driving all of this, right? Because without them, if you’re not making products that people don’t want that people don’t want, then you know, you’re not doing anything useful. So, that world roughly splits into two. There’s the people who do ad tech, right? So, they want your data specifically about let’s say, Ben or Reza, right? They want to know where you live, what you’ve done, because they want to sell you an advert right about the product. Then there’s the other side, which is consumer end side, right? Again, I’m just doing a kind of a rough drawing here of what this world looks like and that market is very starved, but has also some very serious players. So, what do they want their data for? Well, they don’t want to know about what you’re doing. They want to know about what they should be doing, right? I.e. if you want to put a hotel somewhere, or you want to know about people’s movements, generally, because you want to invest in a road, right? There’s a world of those things, or you want to make a better app and so you’re like, well, what am I competitors doing or you’re making a TV program? And you’re like, Well, what are people watching on Netflix, right? All of that is there, all these people are starved of information? And the reason why is because Google has, let’s say a lot of it along with all these other social networks and big platforms that we know about, but they don’t release any of the raw data, right? So they usually tell you about you, but they definitely won’t tell you about your competitors. Right and you see don’t have their God’s eye view and the reason why they don’t do that is because then they can’t service the ad tech people, right? The people who are wanting to buy adverts They lose their monopoly on that. So, that so that’s your kind of there’s your market, right and these people have billions to spend, and they can’t spend it, right. They literally struggling together and the people who they’re dealing with a very unethical so much so that they often just closed down. So, once a year, there’ll be one of these companies that just closes down because they’ve been discovered what they’re doing. It’s like akin to like drug dealing, they need the drugs, who they’re gonna get it from. If you don’t make it legal, they’ll still do it anyway.

I mean, that was the thing out of the documentary, the social dilemma, right, which is like, there’s only like two industries that call the people uses, right. The drugs industry and, and software. So, you know, hey, it all falls into place at that moment, right. So, okay, so that’s the bigger picture. Um, what was one of the other things that we could specifically be building as data unions? Well, okay, so the world of IoT, some of this is going to require, I think, a different regulatory change, right? Because again, regulators are like, okay, so we’ve had this battle about software, and we lost that one. Okay, who owns the data from your washing machine, from your car? From all your smart gadgets? Right? Like, we’re not going to lose this one now, right? Because that will be terrible, then we’ve lost everything. So, we’re not giving Silicon Valley that as well. So, this, again, digital services that will start to say, look, hang on, it’s consumers who own this not you, right? They’re the ones who have the permission to this not the manufacturers, right? And that’s great. That’s great for data unions. Why? Because if you want your all your household appliance data, like you should be able to sell that, right? Why do you want to give that to Siemens, and Bosch, and all these other people? So weird, you have the washing machine, but not the information that comes from it, that’s so weird, right?

Ben Sheppard  36:53

I can see a huge business opportunity here, if we can start gathering data on washing machines and where that Mrs. Sock has gone. People will buy this.

Shiv Malik  37:11

Finally, like the Bermuda Triangle of clouds mystery will be solved through a data union. I mean, I’m definitely in. But you know, again, with your car, you’ll own this, you know, $50,000 car, right? You’ll be driving along, it sounds like you don’t really own it, because they’re all it’s, you know, what are these cars going to be in five years time, they’re gonna be computers on wheels, but you won’t own any information. It’s ridiculous, right? It’s ridiculous. So, there are daily unions on the IoT sphere, I think absolutely huge market waiting to go. Then I think that in traditional software, again, there’s the stuff that sort of raises team is doing right, like you create your own application and it’s a little bit of a harder road, because you have to get that adoption. But it leads to a much sort of more secure, I think, grounding in terms of your information flows, right? You’re really working cooperatively with your users, it’s your application, you control that environment, as a collective and that’s really good, safe and secure and then there’s the last thing, which is okay, look, you know, this will require absolutely legislation, which is a revision to real time data rights, right at the moment in Europe, 450 million people have a right called the right to portability, which means that you can take your data, but it was devised for basically the Postal Service. So, you’ve got like, 30 days it takes to, you know, to use Spotify, whomever you ask, like, has 30 days to respond, and they can give it to you in any file format that they want. So, you know, it’s like, like Microsoft 2003, Excel spreadsheet and that isn’t great, because you’re like, well, hang on, like, we should be able to do this at the click of a button. So, clickable, portable rates are coming. It’s this question of when and when that happens, when that happens, then you have a Netflix data union, LinkedIn, data union, Facebook, that he just named them all, like they’re all there, done.

Ben Sheppard  39:08

Wow. That’s going to be huge, isn’t that? That’s going to be very huge.

Shiv Malik  39:13

Yeah and if not, when? So, no, it’s when not if we screwed that up.

Ben Sheppard  39:22

I will leave in that. So, data union frameworks just been launched. What does this mean for developers and enterprises out there, particularly those that now want to build the missing sock washing machine app solution that we’ve brought in this pod today, but no, seriously, what does this mean for enterprises and indie developers out there?

Shiv Malik  39:52

Well, it means that it’s just I think, you know, Reza, and Reza works with Ibrahim, who’s the technical master if you want at Swash and, you know they had, they were first through the wringer if you want, and it was, you know, we learned a lot through that process on our end about how to make it easier for you know, Ibrahim Mach two if you want, and all the other people that will follow. So, you know, it was a difficult route for them in that regard, which is also why we were so supportive, like, please keep using this thing, we’ll make it work for you, we promise and so now we’ve got something that is a bit more generic other people can use, we’ve got the developer, Doc’s, the tech is far less the Sci Fi than it used to be, it’s much smoother. In fact, we’ve got a 2.0 in the works, which should be out in a month and a bit. So, it’ll just work and that’s nice, because, you know, when we I used to speak to sort of, if you want people who use to build these kinds of things, usually with static data, which is lame, certainly not the future and you know, and they’d be like banging their heads against brick walls, because either they’d be like, we’ve got a great business idea, but we have no idea how to do micro payments, or pull data, or, you know, stick a bundle it all together. Like they’re just, they’re just not in there, like this is too hard and they often get funding in this, like, pack attack, like throw the towel in, right or they were good at the other bit, but they had no like, good business idea. So, like, we’re taking all the pain out of it now. For people who say you just have to have a bright idea, yes, you have to probably be able to make a decent app of consumer facing application a bit. But like, you know, hundreds of 1000s of developers around the world know how to do that. That’s good and you have to make good data products. So, but that’s also okay, because you’re not doing it in secret. You’re not trying to hide that from the consumer for once, right? You can actually just say, this is a thing that makes a data product, right? It’s not a byproduct anymore. It’s their product. That’s great.

Ben Sheppard  42:01

So, if people want to find out more about data union frameworks, where should they go Shiv?

Shiv Malik  42:07

Streamr.network and because it’s slightly retro, it’s Streamr without the ER at the end, it’s just our streamr.network and you’ll find the data union’s page on that. So, it’s discover data unions. You’ll find there all that.

Ben Sheppard  42:26

So yeah, well, that sounds really exciting. Guys, it’s been absolutely fantastic having you both on the pod. I hope we can get you both on again, at some point in the future for updates on you know what’s going on with Swash and how data unions is developing and hopefully there’ll be a showcase of more apps that we can talk about in the not so distant future. Hope you both enjoyed it.

Shiv Malik  42:53

Yeah, it’s been really fun. Thanks.

Ben Sheppard  42:55

Cool.

Reza Naeeni  42:56

Thanks.

Ben Sheppard  42:57

Alright. Thanks, guys. See you, take care.

Shiv Malik  42:59

Thanks Ben.

Ben Sheppard  43:03

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In the TX Podcast series, we dive into Web3 technologies and their role in the emergence of data economies with guests from some of the most forward-thinking companies from around the world. We talk about innovative ways of engineering value from data and the next generation of internet technologies including blockchain, decentralization, AI, and machine learning.

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